To find an ansatz for the correlated part of the wave function, it is useful to rewrite the two-particle local energy in terms of the relative and center-of-mass motion. Let us denote the distance between the two electrons as \( r_{12} \). We omit the center-of-mass motion since we are only interested in the case when \( r_{12} \rightarrow 0 \). The contribution from the center-of-mass (CoM) variable \( \boldsymbol{R}_{\mathrm{CoM}} \) gives only a finite contribution. We focus only on the terms that are relevant for \( r_{12} \) and for three dimensions. The relevant local energy operator becomes then (with \( l=0 \))
$$ \lim_{r_{12} \rightarrow 0}E_L(R)= \frac{1}{{\cal R}_T(r_{12})}\left(-2\frac{d^2}{dr_{ij}^2}-\frac{4}{r_{ij}}\frac{d}{dr_{ij}}+ \frac{2}{r_{ij}}\right){\cal R}_T(r_{12}). $$In order to avoid divergencies when \( r_{12}\rightarrow 0 \) we obtain the so-called cusp condition
$$ \frac{d {\cal R}_T(r_{12})}{dr_{12}} = \frac{1}{2} {\cal R}_T(r_{12})\qquad r_{12}\to 0 $$